One year ago, I stood on the sidewalk between the two buildings, paralyzed with fear.  It had been thirty years since I had set foot on a University campus.  Where do I go?  What do I do?  Will any of the other (twenty year old) students talk to me?  What if I can’t do this?  What the hell am I doing here???

I’m forty-nine years old and I quit a menial, boring, but decent-paying job to come to UW Bothell and finish the college degree I began in 1978 at the Seattle campus, years before any of my fellow students (and some of my professors!) were even born.  Everything looked different, and everything was scary.  There were no card catalogs in the library, just rows and rows of computers and something called a “media center.”  The cafeteria didn’t sell cigarettes, but they did serve lattes.  And the last time a professor asked me to write something on the blackboard, it meant something else entirely.

Well, somehow that first quarter I did manage to figure out where to go and what to do.  The other students did indeed talk to me, and it didn’t seem to matter to them that I have children who are older than they are.  I also met a wonderful community of other students who are “of a certain age,” or as the University so nicely puts it, “non-traditional students.”  UW Bothell is teeming with students who are moms, dads, grandparents, retirees, business people, mid-life career-changers—people who, for one reason or another, were unable to complete their degrees by age twenty-two, and who now are fulfilling their dream.

I was afraid my professors wouldn’t take me seriously.  What is this fat, old lady doing taking up space in my class? I could not have been more wrong.  Dr. Leslie Ashbaugh told me that “non-traditional students are always a pleasure to teach.  They do the reading, they do the optional reading, and if they still have questions they might research the question on their own or insist that the subject be explored in class.  They attend class and during discussion time often have something very relevant to say.  They certainly keep me on my toes!”  Dr. JoLynn Edwards was instrumental in convincing me that I could go on to graduate school, and Dr. Dave Stokes even made me believe I could “do science!”

Perhaps one of the best pieces of advice I received early on was from Dr. Constantin Behler.  He advised our class to go to each of our professors’ office hours during the first two or three weeks of the quarter and introduce ourselves.  Building good relationships with your professors, he told us, can make a critical difference in your academic career, and yet it is something few students do.  I took his advice and he was absolutely right.  I consider every single professor I have had thus far to be an ally, someone who is in my corner and who is rooting for me to succeed.

This year I’m starting something new—the graduate program in Cultural Studies.  Am I scared?  You’re damn right I am!  I’m asking the same self doubting questions all over again.  But this time around I’ve got friends, ages nineteen to sixty-something, I’ve got professors I know I can call on if I need to, and I’ve finally figured out that the really good coffee is over at Cascadia!

by Debbie Brown